CWS Game 5: Virginia 7 Cal-State Fullerton 5

The third day of action in the College World Series kicks off with Cal State Fullerton taking on the Virginia Cavaliers in an elimination game. Cal-State Fullerton enters with a 47-15 record and an 0-1 record in the CWS after losing to 10-6. Virginia enters with a 48-14-1 record while also being 0-1 in the CWS after losing to LSU 9-5. The Cavaliers sent Robert Morey to the hill as he has a 3-0 record in 17 appearances (8 starts) accumulating a 3.11 ERA while striking out 83 batters in 63.2 innings.

After a perfect first inning for both pitchers, Cal-State Fullerton would get a leadoff single by Jared Clark. Khris Davis would follow with a strikeout for the first out of the inning. Dustin Garneau would take a 1-0 pitch over the left field wall for his fifth home run of the season and give the Titans the 2-0 lead. The Titans would not be able to get anymore runs across in the second inning.

Virginia would come back in the bottom of the second with a Steven Proscia one out double. Jarrett Parker would follow with a walk. John Hicks would follow with a single underneath Joey Siddons to score Cannon from second to make it 2-1. Franco Valdes would fly out to right field for the second out of the inning before Keith Werman dumped a ball into center field to score Parker from second base and tie the game at 2. Tyler Cannon would get a walk to extend the inning and load up the bases. Danny Hultzen would follow with a looping single to left field which would score John Hicks and Keith Werman from second and third which gave the Cavs a 4-2 lead. The Cavs would leave the two guys on the base paths as Phil Gosselin grounded out for the final out. The four runs allowed in the inning are the most allowed by Renken in an inning this season.

Christian Colon would lead off the top of the third inning with his eighth homer on the year over the left field wall. Gary Brown would follow with a single and then Josh Fellhauer would pick up another single to put runners on first and third. Jared Clark would follow with a foul out to third base and Khris Davis would hit an infield fly to Khris Davis. Fullerton would try a double steal in Dustin Garneau’s at bat but were not able to get the runner home from third before the tag was applied. After 2.5 innings, UVA led 4-3.

Robert Morey would come out after four innings allowing 5 hits, 3 earned runs, one strikeout while walking two batters. He finished the day with 51 pitches with 32 of them for strikes. Andrew Carraway replaced him and promptly allowed Christian Colon to get a lead off walk but would end up getting picked off first base. Carraway would get out of the inning without allowing any runs across.

Virginia would come up in the bottom of the fifth inning by getting a lead off walk by Tyler Cannon. He was moved over to second on a Danny Hultzen sacrifice bunt. He would come around on a Phil Gosselin double to left-center field which would give the Cavs the 5-3 lead after five innings.

The Cavaliers would hold the Titans scoreless in the top of the sixth inning but would get some two out magic. Franco Valdes would get a double and would come in on a Keith Werman double to center. Werman would come around on a Tyler Cannon single to put the Cavs up 7-3 heading onto the top of the seventh inning.

The game would stay 7-3 until the top of the ninth. Virginia would bring in closer Kevin Arico who would strikeout Joe Scott to start the inning. Joey Siddons would pick up a single then steal second base. Christian Colon would hit a groundball to third baseman Steven Proscia who would make a wild throw allowing Colon to reach and put runner on first and second. Gary Brown would follow with an RBI single to center to put runners on the corners and bring the tying run to the plate in Josh Fellauer as UVA had a 7-3 lead. Fellhauser would strikeout after a long battle at the plate. Jared Clark would follow with a single to shortstop Tyler Cannon which would allow a run to score and bring the tying run up to the plate in Khris Davis. He would hit a groundball right at Cannon who would flip to Keith Wermon for the final out.

Andrew Carraway picks up the win to go to 9-1 while Daniel Renken gets the loss to drop to 11-3. Carraway stated the following after the victory “This is a very big win for our program. No one wants to come here and go two and out. We have a lot of young guys on our team. The energy level is high.”

Fullerton Head Coach Dave Serrano was not happy with his team’s pitching performance today as he said the following about his pitching trouble “I think a little bit was mechanical and that happens when you are a little excited. Falling behind in the count was also a factor, we haven’t done that all year and that is why we have been successful.”

Virginia Head Coach Brian O’Connor on the other hand was happy with his team’s performance ““I’m very proud of our club. I spoke Saturday about how this team shows resiliency and they’ve been that way all year long. They’ve bounced back from defeat and come back fighting. It was a difficult loss on Saturday and we played great today. It took a mixture of pitches to put this thing together. We had some good individual performances. (Keith) Werman is a gunny player and he’s winning hearts here in Omaha. We’re happy to have the chance to play again.”

GAME NOTES

Virginia*-Virginia improves to 1-1 all-time in MCWS contests with their first-ever MCWS victory and is now 1-1 all-time against Cal State Fullerton with both contests coming in NCAA Tournament play (2008 and 2009).*-With today’s victory, Virginia extended its own school record with 49 wins, a total which is third nationally (LSU 52, Arizona State 50).*-Virginia improves to 6-2 in the 2009 NCAA Tournament and are now 3-0 in elimination contests.-Virginia eliminated both of the Big West’s national seeds from the NCAA Tournament (No. 6 UC Irvine and No. 2 Cal State Fullerton).*-Virginia is the third straight first-time MCWS participant to win its second game in Omaha, joining both UC Irvine and Louisville in 2007. The last first-time participant to not win a MCWS game in their first appearance was Missouri State in 2003.*-Virginia Coach Brian O’Connor is the second coach to pick up his first MCWS victory in 2009, joining Arkansas’ Dave Van Horn.*-Virginia, which entered today’s contest third in the country in ERA at 3.23, is 45-4 this season when holding opponents to five runs or less.*-Virginia hit 7-for-14 (.500) today with runners on base after going 2-for-16 (.125) in Saturday’s loss to LSU.*-Virginia’s four runs in the second inning were the most runs in a stanza during the NCAA tournament. The Cavaliers had a three-run eighth inning against San Diego State at the Irvine regional on May 29.*-The Cavaliers’ seven runs are their most in an NCAA tournament game this year (previous high was five on four occasions). It was UVa’s highest run total since scoring 11 runs against Duke in the ACC Tournament.Andrew Carraway improved to 9-1 on the season with his 20th career win. His nine wins this season and 20 wins in his career both tie for sixth on UVa’s single-season and career lists. He now has made 73 appearances which ranks fourth on UVa’s career lists.-Freshman Keith Werman went 2-for-4 today with two RBIs against Cal State Fullerton and is hitting .667 (6-for-9) with two doubles and three RBIs in Omaha. Werman is now hitting .435 (10-for-23) in the NCAA Tournament and is hitting .452 (19-for-42) in his last 15 games, as UVa is 12-3 in that stretch.Danny Hultzen’s stolen base in the seventh inning was the first stolen base allowed by Cal State Fullerton in the NCAA Tournament.-Virginia’s Jarrett Parker did not put a ball in play in his first nine MCWS plate appearances (4 walks, 5 strikeouts) before flying out in his 10th plate appearance in Omaha.

Cal State Fullerton*-Today’s loss drops Cal State Fullerton to 34-27 in 16 all-time MCWS appearances, as the Titans suffered their fifth straight MCWS loss dating back to 2006. The five-game streak is the longest MCWS drought by the Titans, who had previously lost four in a row between 1988 and 1990.*-Cal State Fullerton coach Dave Serrano is now the 11th head coach to bring two teams to the Men’s College World Series and is now 2-4 in his two trips to Omaha, as he guided UC Irvine to the 2007 MCWS.*-The 2009 MCWS marks only the fifth time in their 16 MCWS appearances that Cal State Fullerton has gone 0-2. The previous times occurred in 1975, 1982, 1990 and 2007.*-The last time a former national champion was the first team eliminated from the MCWS was LSU in 2003, which is the only time it has happened since 2000.*-The consecutive losses marks only the fifth time this season at Cal State Fullerton lost two straight games this year and the first time since back-to-back losses to Pacific on April 17 and 18.*-Cal State Fullerton starter Daniel Renken lasted just 5.2 innings against Virginia, which was his shortest outing since March 19 against Oral Roberts. He had pitched at least eight innings in seven consecutive starts, dating back to April 24, and in 10 of his last 11 outings.*-The six runs allowed by Ranken was his highest total of the year, as he had not allowed more than four runs in any of his previous 16 starts. Renken had won his last seven starts prior to Monday’s loss to Virginia.*-Christian Colon extended his hit streak to 12 games with his eighth homer of the year. Colon is hitting .400 (18-for-45) with 12 RBIs during his season-ending hit streak.*-Joe Siddons finished the year hitting .467 (14-for-30) in his seven-game hit streak.*-Cal State Fullerton was 12-1 when hitting two or more homers in a game & 35-2 when out-hitting an opponent this season before Monday’s loss*-Cal State Fullerton is now 0-9 when allowing seven or more runs in a game this season*-Cal State Fullerton, which entered the MCWS fourth in the country with a 3.36 ERA, allowed 17 earned runs (9.00 ERA) in its two games in Omaha after allowing 11 runs in their five games in NCAA Regional and Super Regional play.

Brian Foley is the founder and Lead Editor of College Baseball Daily since its inception in 2005.
He has covered two CWS, multiple NCAA Baseball Regionals, and other special events across the country. In addition to his duties with College Baseball Daily, he has covered games for Inside Lacrosse and been featured in USA Today, Wall Street Journal among other publications.
He can be contacted by email at editor at collegebaseballdaily.com and followed on Twitter @BFoley82.